Bezel.



G. WOOD.

BEZEL.

APPUCATION FILED MAYM, 191s.

Patented J an. 14, 1919.

Jim/07 $07:

@i h azw UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

GLEASON WOOD, OF WALTHAM, MASSACHUSETTS, ASSIGN'OR TO WALTHAM WATCH COMPANY, OF WALTI-IAM, MASSACHUSETTS, A CORPORATION OF MASSACHUSETTS.

BEZEL.

Application filed May 14, 1918.

I afl whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, GLEAsoN WOOD, a citizen of the United States, residing at Waltham, in the county of Middlesex and State of Massachusetts, have invented new and useful Improvements in Bezels, of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to bezels for mounting the crystals of watches and clocks, but particularly Watches, and more especially for mounting. crystals made of socalled unbreakable glass. Within the definition of this term is included material such as celluloid and other more or less flexible substances which are transparent and otherwise adapted to be used as watch crystals, but are without the brittle character of ordinary glass. These materials are adapted to be made in the form of sheets from which circular disks may be cut, and such disks are capable of being formed by bending in concavo-convex shape. This is particularly true of celluloid, which may be thus formed by manipulation with the fingers.

Materials of the sort above indicated are subject to shrinkage due to seasoning, which takes place gradually and continues for long periods of time, it may be even for a duration of years, so that it is not practicable to make unbreakable crystals out of stock so fully seasoned that it will not shrink after being mounted in the bezel. On this account such crystals after they have been in use for some time become loose when they are mounted in bezels of the construction used for holding ordinary glass crystals, and such loosening is, of course, highly objectionable. This fact is so well known that attempts have heretofore been made to prevent crystals of the unbreakable type becoming thus loosened by providing an interlock between the edge of the crystal and the encircling rim of the bezel, designed to an chor the crystal; but this remedy givesrise to the further difficulty that the crystal is either torn at the anchorage or is split elsewhere when an excessive degree of shrinkage takes place.

It is the purpose of my invention to provide a bezel adapted to mount crystals of the unbreakable type, such as are made of cellu- Specification of Letters Patent.

Serial No. 234,371.

loid and the other compositions hereinbefore referred to, which will permit the greatest possible amount of shrinkage to take place but will always hold the crystal securely, without permitting it either to become loose or to be torn or split. This is the main purpose, but the invention has also the further purposes of providing a bezel in which the crystal may be inserted from the rear, and having sufficient strength and rigidity at its rinito enable a fiat disk thus to be inserted and to be formed into the concavo-convex shape in the act of inserting it; and also to produce a form of bezel which can be made by die work exclusively and without cutting.

or so-called machining.

The invention comprises the novel features in the bezel and in the combination of the same with a crystal hereinafter described, with reference to the drawings and particularly pointed out in the claims.

In the drawings, Figures 1 and 2 are re- Patented Jan. 14:, 1919.

spectively a plan view and an elevation of one form or modification of the invention. Fig. 3 is a cross section enlarged on line 33 of Fig. 1. Fig. 4 isv a view similar to Fig. 3 but showing the condition of the bezel prior to the folding or bending up of the retaining lip. Figs. 5, 6, and 7 are views similar to Figs. 2, 3,- and 4, respectively, showing a different species of theinvention, Fig. 6 being a section on line 66 of Fig. 5.

In the drawings or represents a crystal and 7) represents a bezel embodying my invention. The crystal at is of so-called unbreakable glass, that is celluloid or other composition which is non-brittle, transparent, and adapted to be formed into fiat disks of substantially uniform thickness and shaped by bending into concavo-convex form. In Figs. 3 and 4 the crystal is shown as reduced in thickness at its edge to make a flange a, while in Figs. 6 and 7 it is shown as of the full thickness throughout; in both instances, however, the front and rear faces of the crystal at and near its edge are parallel. That is the crystal is neither beveled nor is it formed with grooves in its opposite faces.

The bezel is formed from a ring out out of flat stock, the stock being of ductile metal. The inner edge is doubled back on a folding shown.

of the circular line 0 toward the rear of the I bezel, and the diameter of the inner cylindrical surface 6 of which is substantially greater than the diameter of the circular folding line 0. In this specification and the following claims the term front, and words of like import, are used with the meaning of the side of the bezel and crystal which is outward or exposed when the same are mounted on a watch or clock, while the term rear or back and words of similar import mean the opposite side of the bezel and crystal. Having regard to these definitions, the lip 6 when in the stage last described, which is shown in Figs. 3 and 7 projects rearwardly from the plane of the most advanced or forward part of the bezel. The exterior edge of the ring from which the bezel is formed is offset rearwar'dly in substantially the manner common in devices of this sort, and is provided with a shoulder g by which it may be mounted on a watch case center or a clock case in any usual or other desired manner so as to hold the crystal away from the dial of the watch or clock. The intermediate part of the bezel ring over the doubled back portion is preferably offset forwardly and form-s a raised ornamental bead h, the offsetting having the functional utility of locating the rim of the crystal well in front of the plane of the attaching shoulder g and therefore well clear of the dial and of that part of the case in which the bezel is mounted.

When the bezel is in the condition shown in Figs. 4: and 7, it is prepared for the reception of the crystal. The doubled back part forms a shoulder or outer lip 70 against which the outer side of the crystal flange a in one form, or the outer surfaceof the crystal in the other form, is brought to bear, the edge of the crystal, of course, passing Within the circuit of the cylindrical lip 6. When the crystal has been thus placed, the edge of the lip c is folded over across the rim of the crystal and back of the rear surface of the sameas shown in Figs. 3 and 6 and by dotted lines in Figs. 4 and 7. Inthus' bending up the lip c it is made to conform to the thickness of that part of the crystal which underlies the lip 76, thus in the form shown in Figs. '3 and 4: embracing the flange a, and the form shown in Figs. 6 and 7 embracing the edge having the full thickness of the crystal. This is the only difference between the two forms of the invention here It will be observed that in each case the adjacent surfaces of the lips c and 7c are parallel to each other, so that they provide a groove of uniform width and of substantial depth into which either the full edge of the crystal, or of the flange a of the crystal projects and in which it is confined. This characteristic of parallelism between the bounding walls of such groove causes said walls to fit closely the inserted part of the crystal even after the crystal has contracted to the greatest possible extent, because the only measurable shrinkage due to seasoning takes place in the diameter of the crystal and the shrinkage in the direction of its thickness is imperceptible. If desired the lip 6 may in the operation of turning it up against the crystal be caused to compress the latter so that even if the crystal should shrink in thickness, there will be no looseness whatever and the crystal will continue to be tightly gripped, so that it can move neither in and out nor across the plane of the bezel. The depth of this groove being greater than the greatest possible amount of shrinkage which will occur in the crystal prevents the edge of the latter from being withdrawn from the groove at any point.

The manner in which the bezel is formed as shown in Figs. 1 and 7 allows the crystal to be inserted from the rear, while the reinforcement and strengthening of the lip 76 by doubling back part of the material of the bezel gives this lip such firmness that it will retain the edge of the crystal when pressure is applied to the central part thereof to give the concave-convex form. Thereby it is made possible to insert plane disks which have not been previously pressed into concavo convex form, but the diameter of which is slightly greater than that of the inner surface of the rib 6, so that the act of inserting the crystal in the bezel necessarily causes its center to be bulged outwardly into the desired final form. This feature enables a hitherto necessary operation, that is the previous bulging of the crystal, to be entirely done away with, and thus introduces an economy in the manufacture.

An advantage resides also from the mode of making the bezel by first doubling back the inner edge before bending out the lip c, in that all steps of its manufacture may be carried out by die work, and it becomes unnecessary to shape or bring to size any part of the bezel by cutting. This is not only a more economical mode of manufacture, but it is addition-ally important because thereby all duplicate bezels maybe exactly alike in dimensions, and without the inaccunacies and variations which are inevitable when cutting is a part of the mode of manu facture.

the ring as a lip of cylindrical form, having an interior diameter materially greater than that of said circular line, such lip being adapted. to be folded across the circumference of an inserted crystal.

In testimony whereof I have affixed my signature.

v GLEASON WOOD.

What I claim and desire to secure by Letters Patent is:

A bezel adapted for the reception of a crystal comprising a ring of flat stock of which the inner zone is doubled back on a circular line between the outer and inner edges, and the inner edge is turned out at approximately right angles to the plane of Copies of this patent may be obtained for five cents each, by addressing the Commissioner of Patents, Washington, D. 0. 

